Your last generator Maintenance Run

[3930dave]

I can really see where power is paramount if on a well...

The nearly a week without power in Olympia in the middle of winter had just about everyone outside the city on generator power...

As with most things... planning goes a long way.

Never had a genset at the cabin... propane and candles and lantern... never had to worry much about refrigeration... one winter Grandma just wrapped the frozen goods and put them in the snow bank...

As kids... we always hoped the power to go out... we called it Pioneer Living and my Grandmother would tell stories about the root cellar and growing up without electricity or telephone... it's the things that keep life interesting for kids.

To her having hot water on tap was the ultimate in luxury... and with a propane water heater life was good...

Funny you mention that history...... at grs's comment of 5-10 days w/o power, I was thinking "my grandparents wouldn't have had trouble adjusting, as they grew up under those conditions". Many people today, with no camping experience, would be up a certain creek.

Rgds, D.

 

[ultrarunner]

I have to admit we as kids rooted for power outages as well. Even as a newlywed, the roughing it was sort of romantic and exciting. Not any more. I have a 3kW that will power enough appliances/lights etc. to keep the house comfortable. I have considered a larger automatic genset, but it is hard to justify the expense and fuel burn. It would be nice though not to have to monkey with the mechanical interlock on the service panel in the dark and decide what breakers to keep on.

A few weeks ago I swapped out the emergency "Bug Eye" battery lamps at the Hospital... the new ones cost about $25 in qty and generally last at least 5 years before needed a $12 battery...

Maybe something like this that goes on for 90 minutes and stay on until power is restored?

https://www.grainger.com/product/AC...y-Light-13M588?nls=3&ssf=3&searchQuery=13M588

PM if you need more info...

 

[ultrarunner]

Funny you mention that history...... at grs's comment of 5-10 days w/o power, I was thinking "my grandparents wouldn't have had trouble adjusting, as they grew up under those conditions". Many people today, with no camping experience, would be up a certain creek.

Rgds, D.

My grandparents never had a refrigerator... they did have a big old chest freezer... the cellar kept everything else cool on the farm... plus they were in snow country...

I've seen adult women break into tears/panic when the power goes out here in the city and candle caused fires make the news too...

Common sense is not as common as it once was... even if it is as simple as bringing out the camp gear...

 

[3930dave]

I've come to think of it as UnCommon Sense. During a major emergency is not a good time to learn basic skills, esp. survival ones.

Candle fires and CO poisoning cause many deaths.

Back in the '98 Ice Storm, this one family barely survived. It was 40 below, and Dad decides to haul the gas bbq inside the house, fire it up full blast, then go to bed. Fire dept pulled them all out of the house, just in time.

Some people only go glamping these days..... learning can be pretty limited, if all you do is hook up the water, sewer, and cable connections to the 5iver ! :laughing:

No real substitute for direct experience..... in a major catastrophe, chances are your access to google and youtube will be limited to non-existent.

Rgds, D.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

When the power goes out here, we don't jump up to do anything... We have flash lights around the house and a couple batt powered lanterns too, also a kerosene light handy...

After an hour or so, I go out to the garage and get out the Honda 2000, start it up outside and plug in a couple things, like the fridge, (I have a cord running into the basement to plug things into) Normally the power doesn't go off for long, if it does, I can get out the whole house gen set, but I haven't had to do that in years and years... Even with the whole house genset running, I don't run it full time, we just don't feel the need to! We mostly run it for showers...

Water is no problem, I have an artesian well and spring fed ponds, so a pail of water to flush the john is just a short walk away, and the over flow pipe on the artesian well, is the same water that comes into the house that's used for everything else.

In the winter, I use the Honda to run the fan on the wood stove, so "central" heat isn't a problem either, and to tell the truth, we "could" go without the fan, the house would just be cooler...

SR

 

[3930dave]

Water.... drinking, for sanitation, and managing ground water are the biggies.

Nice with that artesian SR, you've got 2 out of 3 covered.

That's one thing I really liked about my last house - it had a basement, but the sump was gravity drained into the ravine behind the house.

Rgds, D.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Yeaaa, the artesian just keeps on keeping on,

And I have three bigger spring fed ponds, here's one of them,

SR

 

[ultrarunner]

I've come to think of it as UnCommon Sense. During a major emergency is not a good time to learn basic skills, esp. survival ones.

Candle fires and CO poisoning cause many deaths.

Back in the '98 Ice Storm, this one family barely survived. It was 40 below, and Dad decides to haul the gas bbq inside the house, fire it up full blast, then go to bed. Fire dept pulled them all out of the house, just in time.

Some people only go glamping these days..... learning can be pretty limited, if all you do is hook up the water, sewer, and cable connections to the 5iver ! :laughing:

No real substitute for direct experience..... in a major catastrophe, chances are your access to google and youtube will be limited to non-existent.

Rgds, D.

It could be generational...

I've come to know a lot of older people and some of the 80+ year old widows know more about home care than 95% of the younger population... and this is in the city.

One of my senior friends would clean all the burners on the Wedgewood gas/wood stove she bought new after the war... she also kept wood on hand to cook... simple things like lighting a pilot are beyond most or knowing how to shut off the water...

 

[check]

The nice thing about a Model T is you can have both... an electric start and an attached crank! Of course you can forgo the battery all together and run off the mag and have gas and oil to power the lamps...

Oh, my, what a beautiful car? How much do you want for it?

 

[check]

I'm seeing a trend in this thread...... changing generator oil seems to correlate with subsequent grid failures ! Cause and Effect ? Nice to have fresh oil in there, esp. for longer runs.... I know Huntsville was down for a while this weekend. We are lucking enough to still have Efree to purchase here. Rgds, D.

Yes, and in fact the power was out for three days, during which time my 17 kW Kohler automatic standby generator was running. Lots of propane used – ouch!

 

[ultrarunner]

Oh, my, what a beautiful car? How much do you want for it?

Thanks.... it's a keeper.

My biggest problem is storage for the collection and having 6 cars in a two car garage... keeps them safe but not accessible when a floor jack is needed to shoe horn them in place.

I used to use my Honda 1000 a lot 25 years ago in my Service Truck and then I installed a second battery, heavy duty alternator and a 1800 Watt inverter hard wired to a trouble light extension cord...

The only place I have ever lived where having a genset would be highly desired is Olympia WA... it can get cold... power has been out for days and house is all electric on private well... power is needed even for the pellet stove.

Home is wired for a generator with manual individual circuit transfer... just no genset is included with the rent.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Yeaaa, the artesian just keeps on keeping on,

And I have three bigger spring fed ponds, here's one of them,

SR

Do you still pick and store corn in a crib? Beautiful place.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I no longer plant field corn, so to answer your question "no", but I still have the picker...

SR

 

[3930dave]

Yeaaa, the artesian just keeps on keeping on,

And I have three bigger spring fed ponds, here's one of them,

SR

Fishin' just out the back door ! :thumbsup:

Nice backup for fire suppression too.

Rgds, D.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Saturday night, heavy wet snow was coming down fast. I thought it would be good time to excercise the genset so I ran it for about an hour. Two hours later, we were watching TV and the weirdest thing I have ever seen the hydro (power) do, happened. It was strobing on and off.

I jumped into my boots as fast as I could and ran the couple hundred feet (through the snow) to the garage where the 200 amp service panel is and shut off the main switch. That strobing can't be good for a lot of things. Anyway, fired up the genset again, which was still warm, and ran it for a couple of hours til I went to sleep around one o clock. Power came back around two. Nothing seems to have been damaged.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Fishin' just out the back door ! :thumbsup:

Nice backup for fire suppression too.

Rgds, D.

I do have fish in them, in fact at one time we raised rainbow trout. Here's another of the ponds,

SR

 

[3930dave]

It could be generational...

I've come to know a lot of older people and some of the 80+ year old widows know more about home care than 95% of the younger population... and this is in the city.

One of my senior friends would clean all the burners on the Wedgewood gas/wood stove she bought new after the war... she also kept wood on hand to cook... simple things like lighting a pilot are beyond most or knowing how to shut off the water...

I had a chat with one of those ladies, in an auto parts store near home recently. She was picking up Stabil, to put her lawn-mower away for the Winter. She knew what it was, and how to use it..... said her husband passed away 15 years ago, and she "had to learn how to take care of all of these things herself".

I think of the generational differences now and then..... that generation grew up with manufactured goods being really scarce, relatively expensive, and designed to last for a long time. Few people back then wanted to buy things "On Time", and IMO, tended to take a lot of personal responsibility, period - partly because the consequences of doing otherwise were often dire.

Things have changed in many respects. Young people coming out of school with 10's or 100's of thousands of debt, into a society awash in easy (and, at the moment, cheap) credit grew up with very different priorities and thinking.

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

Saturday night, heavy wet snow was coming down fast. I thought it would be good time to excercise the genset so I ran it for about an hour. Two hours later, we were watching TV and the weirdest thing I have ever seen the hydro (power) do, happened. It was strobing on and off.

I jumped into my boots as fast as I could and ran the couple hundred feet (through the snow) to the garage where the 200 amp service panel is and shut off the main switch. That strobing can't be good for a lot of things. Anyway, fired up the genset again, which was still warm, and ran it for a couple of hours til I went to sleep around one o clock. Power came back around two. Nothing seems to have been damaged.

Line switch-gear will often attempt a couple of re-connects automatically, before locking-out off. Technically pretty normal, but nothing I want to see at home either.

The automatic home-generator systems I've seen have a Manual mode - nice for days when the grid is bouncing on and off; you can force the generator to keep running until the grid settles back down.

Good to hear that those line excursions didn't smoke anything.

Rgds, D.

 

[ultrarunner]

I had a chat with one of those ladies, in an auto parts store near home recently. She was picking up Stabil, to put her lawn-mower away for the Winter. She knew what it was, and how to use it..... said her husband passed away 15 years ago, and she "had to learn how to take care of all of these things herself".

I think of the generational differences now and then..... that generation grew up with manufactured goods being really scarce, relatively expensive, and designed to last for a long time. Few people back then wanted to buy things "On Time", and IMO, tended to take a lot of personal responsibility, period - partly because the consequences of doing otherwise were often dire.

Things have changed in many respects. Young people coming out of school with 10's or 100's of thousands of debt, into a society awash in easy (and, at the moment, cheap) credit grew up with very different priorities and thinking.

Rgds, D.

I remember going shopping with my Grandmother as a very young child... each Thursday market day would start at the bank and sometimes end at the bank... unless Grandma had cash in hand... she did not buy... said it keeps a person from getting into trouble.

In college I got a Sears credit card and boy did she let her displeasure be known... said easy credit ruined a lot of good people... had to promise to never carry a balance and to this day I have not.

All this talk of generators has me thinking of giving mine a once over this Friday... get them all running and up to temp...

 

[3930dave]

All this talk of generators has me thinking of giving mine a once over this Friday... get them all running and up to temp...

While I do enjoy in general talking mech-tech with like-minded folk, this thread in particular has been a help to me in terms of keeping my generator ToDo activity on track.

Do let us know how those runs go.

Rgds, D.